Tag Archives: question

August 1, 2024 · 7:02 pm

Let’s be Real about 26 Years

Today (Aug 1) is our 26 year wedding anniversary. My word for this year is ‘real’. As I walked early this morning, I spent time reflecting on what these 26 years have taught me. What it has taught me about life and myself. So I’m going to be real about the last 26 years.

Choice

I know it is cliche, in fact I could provide you with thousands of powerful quotes about how our lives are affected by choice. But a cliche has a level of truth to it, and sometimes we shouldn’t ignore that truth of a cliche. 

Our lives are our choices.

I’ve written about this before. I have made some important choices in my life, but the last 26 years have taught me some interesting aspects of choice, especially as my family grew. My choices affected more than just me.

The most important aspect of choice I’ve learned is the power of my response to ANYTHING that happens. And this is hard because at any moment I can tear down or build up someone with my response. Most importantly my wife and kids. It is too easy to just be on auto pilot with the routine of life, and that is where I’ve messed up at times, be it an exasperated sigh or a harsh word spoken without me thinking. 

It is hard, but not impossible to be aware of our choice in how we respond to events and people.

Another aspect of choice is another cliche in a way, but choose to do what you love. This doesn’t mean you abandon all responsibilities, that will lead you away from happiness. Choosing to do what you love will affect all aspects of your life. Understand the power of that choice. It will influence your job or career. It will change the way you live each day. The way you interact with people. And if you can do what you love as a career, awesome for you! But if you can’t, still do what you love.  I don’t make a single cent on my blog, no ads, no subscriptions, but I love writing and sharing. The happiness I get from my writing filters into all the other parts of my life.

But, choosing to do what you love is important on a smaller scale. I’m talking about doing the everyday things you love. If you love watching horror movies, make sure you watch them. If you like ice cream, enjoy a bowl every once and awhile (yes, it’s important to be healthy but being happy affects your health, too). I love playing Minecraft with my daughters. We play at least a couple times a week. Live life by choosing to do what you love.

Life 

And then there is the other side of the coin… no choice at all.  At times life hits us with events that we are helpless to change. My mom dying of cancer was out of my control. I did and do have control over how I respond. But life will present us with situations that make us feel helpless and lost.

Then there is the connection of life where we have to deal with other people’s choices. The best principal I ever worked with left the school we were working at together. His decision affected more than just my professional life, but I did not have control of his career choices. All I could do was choose how I responded.

This is a factor present in my home everyday! Even now with two of my children building their own lives, the house is still filled with six people and the decisions, both big and small, that we all have to respond to. It could be the simple moment of not liking a favorite food. (Which happens all the time. I swear I need a daily memo of these changes… the fun of #dadlife.) My house is a microcosm of dealing with how intertwined our lives are and the effects of choices that ripple through a single day for each of us.

Life is a complex balance of choice and unexpected moments, both joyful and heartbreaking.

Questions

You would think I had all the answers after 26 years. I don’t. But I have learned to appreciate the questions and find joy in searching for the answers.

Yes, there are still big questions. This past year hit me hard regarding death and in turn the reason for this life. I don’t have a definite answer, but even through the heartache I have been able to connect with people. I have written powerful poetry, while spending time growing spiritually. That is the part of trying to answer the questions that bring depth to our life.

But even the small questions: Can I make an omelet? Leads to learning new skills and fun moments.

I still have big questions that I am working on. Life questions that I have blogged about before. And even though some of them are painful, there is joy in searching for the answers because I discover more about this life.

The last 26 years have shown me that most of my life is in my choices, from career changes to responding to a teenager waking up in a bad mood. And even when life hits with challenging moments that make us feel lost, we have the choice on how we respond. That choice is even present in the questions we seek to answer about ourselves and this life we are given.

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January 3, 2024 · 9:58 pm

A Son’s Reflection on Death

If you are a faithful reader of my blog you know I write a lot about being a father, but this blog post will be written as a son. And I have no idea where it will go. All I know is that I need to write something to help deal with finding out today that my biological father has passed away.

There are so many emotional elements that I am processing right now.

The first is dealing with the third death in less than a year. The harsh reality that our time here is limited and unknown. But I’m going to leave this topic for another day.

This post is about me as a son. Of spending most of my life dealing with the question of why I was never important enough for either of my parents to love me, to raise me, to guide me in this life. And now I won’t have the chance to ask my father… or as any son deeply desires, to know if he was proud of me. 

A blog post is not enough space to tell my whole story. To bring forth the pain his absence created in my life and does still to this day. And I am scared of the feelings I will have tomorrow.

He never saw me play football in high school or in college. He has never seen his six grandchildren. I never had my father to ask advice from. He lived his life as if I wasn’t here. 

And yes, I know that some of you are asking why I didn’t reach out to repair the relationship. First, a single blog post can not cover the craziness of my younger years. The alcohol and drug use my parents partook in, living with them with their new wife or husbands, moving from city to city. As I grew older, I understood how I was seen as a burden at times or other times simply forgotten by both of my parents.

And as I started a family, worked at being a good dad, I became even more angry at both of my parents because I did a good job of being a dad. Yes, it was hard at times, I have sacrificed for them, but I am proud of my kids. And that deep rooted question grew even more in my heart.

Why couldn’t my parents love me? Why wasn’t I worth their time?

There was a moment when my father and I reconnected for a brief second. We saw each other in person (a crazy story) and a few letters were sent back and forth but in the end it was clear that nothing had changed. I wasn’t a son he wanted to be a father to (he had another family). So I went on living my life, never having the question answered. 

But I am his son. And it hurts to even think about what could have been, maybe what should have been. 

I believe all children, but especially sons, just want to know that their father is proud of them. Sadly, now, I will never know. I am left believing he didn’t care… and that hurts the most.

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October 11, 2011 · 9:09 am

Are You Ready?

For all the hours I’ve spent on the road, all the years living in Nebraska and Wyoming, I have never hit a deer or an antelope.  I have had a number of other car accidents, but I’ve always spotted the deer while driving before anything bad could happen. Until this morning…

Right now, it is completely dark for most of my commute.  This morning the moon accompanied me on my drive. I was in between Doniphan and the interstate (as the picture below shows).  Things were going fine, music on, cruise set, and I was checking traffic to decide when to go into the left lane so I could merge onto the interstate.  I just crossed the bridge when the deer appeared.

Image from Google Maps

I was still in the right lane when the deer appeared on the passenger side, just in the fading part of the headlights. Both of us were caught in that eternal second. Because of the light the deer looked like a ghost, faded, almost transparent.  I could see his head snap back and his black eyes widen.  I swear his expression was, “What the….”

I did nothing. Which was the best thing. The deer and I caught up with time. It seemed my car lurched forward to do it, getting ahead of the deer to miss him.  I looked into my review mirror but could not see if he crossed the road or not.

No matter how much we try, we cannot control Life.  We have control of our attitude, or work ethic, and our smile.  But Life, it is like a box of Ping-Pong balls dumped out on a concrete floor.  We will get knocked around, sometimes drastically.  This got me thinking about dictionaries…

As an English teacher I forever get the question, “How do you spell that?”  I would always respond with directions to the bookshelf where the dictionaries sat waiting to be opened.  Even when my students had computers I would get that question.  At a time when answers are sometimes just a click away, why did my students still ask that question?

I think part of the shift we are experiencing, in school and our own lives, must include the ability to react (or know when not to in my case) to Life.  That is a grand statement, but I’m not sure I have had a whole day where something didn’t go wrong.  Where a Ping-Pong ball didn’t knock something off track.  Or a deer run out in front of you.  Are you prepared to react, to adapt?  Are students prepared?

Courtesy of Flickr user Lester Public Library

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